Learn to Play Craps – Tips and Plans: The Past of Craps
Be smart, play smart, and pickup craps the ideal way!
Games that use dice and the dice themselves date all the way back to the Middle Eastern Crusades, but current craps is just about 100 years old. Modern craps formed from the old English game called Hazard. No one absolutely knows the birth of the game, but Hazard is said to have been invented by the Englishman, Sir William of Tyre, sometime in the twelfth century. It’s believed that Sir William’s paladins wagered on Hazard amid a blockade on the citadel Hazarth in 1125 AD. The title Hazard was derived from the fortification’s name.
Early French settlers brought the game Hazard to Canada. In the 1700s, when exiled by the English, the French headed south and found sanctuary in southern Louisiana where they eventually became Cajuns. When they fled Acadia, they took their favorite game, Hazard, along. The Cajuns simplified the game and made it fair mathematically. It’s said that the Cajuns altered the name to craps, which is derived from the name of the bad luck throw of snake-eyes in the game of Hazard, recognized as "crabs."
From Louisiana, the game migrated to the Mississippi scows and all over the country. A great many consider the dice builder John H. Winn as the founder of current craps. In the early 1900s, Winn assembled the modern craps layout. He added the Do not Pass line so players can wager on the dice to lose. Later, he developed the boxes for Place bets and put in place the Big 6, Big 8, and Hardways.